shrink dvd to hard drive but keep menu

[daywane]

what do I need to do this?
now LARGE hard drives are cheaper I wish to redo my movie collection.
I would like to click on movie off hard drive and go to menu.
I do not need to convert my old AVI movie only files , I want to just start over

[jamesjones626]

theres a program called ratdvd, but i didnt like it.  Im not sure if its possible to keep the menu but here is a good site to look at.  http://www.videohelp.com/
hope you find what your looking for

[DillonFoulds]

Why not just rip the contents to your hdd, and get a media front end that flattens the folders or treats a folder as a file?

[jamesjones626]

Why not just rip the contents to your hdd, and get a media front end that flattens the folders or treats a folder as a file?

wut program does that?

[shmokes]

I'm pretty sure Divx has supported embedded menus and whatnot for a long time, but I've never done it and have no idea how it works.  Also, I'm pretty sure that pretty much any media center program will behave as DillonFoulds described.  And any ripping program will rip DVD contents intact to the HDD.  But that takes up a lot of space. 

In my opinion what you really need to do is realize that you don't want the menu.  What are you going to do with a menu?  You just want the movie.  Why introduce an extra step to watch it?

[DillonFoulds]

What are you going to do with a menu?  You just want the movie.  Why introduce an extra step to watch it?

Bonus Features, Director's commentary, etc. etc.?

[Thenasty]

DVD Shrink do just that. You can either RIP FULL DVD or just the Movie content.
In your case you want the WHOLE THING including Menus, extras etc.... So use the FULL BACKUP.
It will shoved all contents to your HD, then when it ask you to insert a blank DVD, just cancel.
Goto where you shove it folder, rename folder to the movie title, drag the first file into the DVD player (Nero Showtime) and bingo, you get your WARNING, then the MENU.

[SavannahLion]

I guess you can try DVDShrink if you can still find it.

[edit] Damn you beat me to it.

[DillonFoulds]

DVD Shrink has the option to NOT recompress the content, and as well back up the contents to a local hard drive folder. No need to burn, or create an ISO.

[shmokes]

What are you going to do with a menu?  You just want the movie.  Why introduce an extra step to watch it?

Bonus Features, Director's commentary, etc. etc.?

   As though . . . .    . . . like . . . . . . . Oh god . . . 

Nobody actually wants that stuff   

[SavannahLion]

What are you going to do with a menu?  You just want the movie.  Why introduce an extra step to watch it?

Bonus Features, Director's commentary, etc. etc.?

   As though . . . .    . . . like . . . . . . . Oh god . . . 

Nobody actually wants that stuff   

Take it easy dude. Some of that extra content is pretty decent. Some of my son's favorite things to watch are the shorts from the Pixar films. I admit about 90% of it is crap, but there's an occasional where the extras are pretty decent.

[shmokes]

   I was just playing around (sort of).

Seriously, though, on that rare occasion (and it is rare) that there is something of value on a DVD beyond the movie itself, you can simply rip it in addition to the movie.  So when you're browsing your media you've got Toy Story or Monster's Inc., or whatever, and you've got a folder with all the Pixar shorts.  Easy peasy.  There's no need for the menu, and certainly no need to make a habit of ripping all the utterly uninteresting crap that you don't care about on 99% of DVDs just so you will have worthwhile extras on that last 1%. 

That's my take, at least.  Simplify your life.  No need to be a completist.  Trim the fat, get what you want.  Bonus: you won't run out of hard disk space as fast either!!!

[saint]

1click dvd copy pro. Does everything, simple gui.

[Ginsu Victim]

DVD Fab does a good job as well. I use that and DVD Shrink for everything.

[HaRuMaN]

Ripitforme

[saint]

What's everyone's favorite for blu-rays?

[HaRuMaN]

What's everyone's favorite for blu-rays?

dvdfab decrypter hd

[Ginsu Victim]

DVD Fab does bluray

Edit: Beat me to it.

[Howard_Casto]

  I was just playing around (sort of).

Seriously, though, on that rare occasion (and it is rare) that there is something of value on a DVD beyond the movie itself, you can simply rip it in addition to the movie.  So when you're browsing your media you've got Toy Story or Monster's Inc., or whatever, and you've got a folder with all the Pixar shorts.  Easy peasy.  There's no need for the menu, and certainly no need to make a habit of ripping all the utterly uninteresting crap that you don't care about on 99% of DVDs just so you will have worthwhile extras on that last 1%. 

That's my take, at least.  Simplify your life.  No need to be a completist.  Trim the fat, get what you want.  Bonus: you won't run out of hard disk space as fast either!!!

In my opinion if you are going to bother with keeping the menus then you might as well just keep your collection on disc and put it in when you want to watch it.  The whole point of ripping a dvd is to get rid of the lengthy boot-up process which includes the menu (which also can force you through fbi warnings, previews of other films, ads, ect... before getting to the actual frikkin film!!!"). 

[HaRuMaN]

DVD Fab does bluray

Edit: Beat me to it.

Beat ya by 21 seconds, lol

[DillonFoulds]

Yeah, I was only guessing on the actual reason to keep the menu in. DVD Shrink will let you select just the movie files to shrink if you'd like (or if you're inclined, the extras). Sometimes the director's commentary can be fun to watch, but I doubt it's something you'd bother keeping backed up on HDD.

Also, you can pick up a blu-ray of all the "Pixar Shorts" up to and NOT including "Cars", I believe.

[jamesjones626]

dvdfab and handbrake are the 1-2 combo in making a archival backup.  The x264 codec is better quality than divx or xvid.

[saint]

What's everyone's favorite for blu-rays?

Jeez, you can make 'archival backup copies' of blu-rays now?  Getting about time to update my tech...

Throw it in quotes if you want, but I put everything on my media server and stream it across our network.

[massive88]

Yeah, I was only guessing on the actual reason to keep the menu in. DVD Shrink will let you select just the movie files to shrink if you'd like (or if you're inclined, the extras). Sometimes the director's commentary can be fun to watch, but I doubt it's something you'd bother keeping backed up on HDD.

The exception being Cannibal the Musical, where the directors commentary track is almost as funny as the original movie.

[Ginsu Victim]

Yeah, I was only guessing on the actual reason to keep the menu in. DVD Shrink will let you select just the movie files to shrink if you'd like (or if you're inclined, the extras). Sometimes the director's commentary can be fun to watch, but I doubt it's something you'd bother keeping backed up on HDD.

The exception being Cannibal the Musical, where the directors commentary track is almost as funny as the original movie.

I actually watched it WITH the commentary before I ever watched it without it.

Oh no....songs are in my head.....get 'em out!

It's on Hulu now, btw.

[AllisterFiend]

I always liked Clone DVD myself.  Real easy to uncheck the stuff you don't want and re-author the DVD.  It'll burn, make isos, or dump the files into a folder you specify.

I use Clone DVD also.  It will allow you to just rip the movie as well as keep the menu in place.

I use to do it this way because very rarely do I watch the extras, but I really like some of the menu animations and artwork that they put together for the DVD.

Now I just rip the whole movie.

I have an HTPC set up. and I use a program called XBMC to organize and view my movies.

http://xbmc.org/

AllisterFiend

[Ginsu Victim]

Man, some DVDs I buy JUST for the extras. Rob Zombie's Halloween isn't a very good movie, but the four and a half hour long "Making of..." documentary was well worth owning.

[shmokes]

+1 DVD Fab.  I pirated the software years ago and loved it so much that I felt guilty.  I then made the amazingly bright decision to buy a lifetime license, so I just keep downloading new versions for free.  Been using it forever and it just keeps being great.

[daywane]

main reason for me wanting menu is for chapter option.

[shmokes]

How often do you decide to watch a movie from somewhere other than the beginning?  I mean, I know it comes in handy sometimes, but it doesn't seem like it's enough to have to deal with all the inconvenience, especially when jumping around to different locations in an AVI file is pretty easy.

[daywane]

I honestly never seem to have time to watch a full movie.
I have to catch them in sections   

[protokatie]

I honestly never seem to have time to watch a full movie.
I have to catch them in sections  

Sounds like a better option for you is to get a player program that will remember (and start off from by default) from the last place you left off. Some players also let you bookmark a location in a video, and will let you start back there the next time you start the video again. It is late, but I believe that vlc player, bs player, and even windows media player let you do this. This basic concept is also set by default in iTunes, so try some of these out.

Changing a setting in a player program is FAR easier than finding some other way to transcode your library.

[patrickl]

Yeah, my "Popcorn Hour" does that too. It simply continues a movie from where I was.

[Ginsu Victim]

My Philips DVD player will remember the last position, even if you remove the disc and play something else. I love that feature. Sometimes we'll stop a movie because we're tired, then the next day we'll watch a TV show on DVD, then in the evening we'll finish the movie from the night before. Picks up right where it left off.

[shmokes]

XBMC does this too.

[DillonFoulds]

Yes, but XBMC forgets the position when the program is closed, or the computer is restarted.

Otherwise, I love everything about my xbmc htpc! The scrapers (when configured correctly) work amazing!

[shmokes]

Really?   I stopped using XBMC (the actual Xbox version) a few months ago, but I could have sworn it remembered.  Shrug . . . I could be wrong.

[stace]

It definately remembers on the Xbox version. 

[Ginsu Victim]

It does

[protokatie]

Is it just me, but did anyone realize that I was the one to derail a grrr thread...


And yes, the answer is in the player, not the transcoding.


Will someone start a list of players that will start from where you left off (excluding xbmc)

I will start;

ALL of them.

[Ginsu Victim]

Will someone start a list of players that will start from where you left off (excluding xbmc)

I will start;

ALL of them.

 

[Thenasty]

Even the VHS/VCR will start where you left off   (if you don't use one of those rewinder)

[HaRuMaN]

One of these rewinders?

[ahofle]

+1 DVD Fab.  I pirated the software years ago and loved it so much that I felt guilty.  I then made the amazingly bright decision to buy a lifetime license, so I just keep downloading new versions for free.  Been using it forever and it just keeps being great.

Just curious, does your lifetime license include the newest 'products'?  They split up what was once a single application into about 6, making the lifetime licenses now hundreds of dollars. 
http://dvdfab.net/en/order.htm

[Ginsu Victim]

One of these rewinders?

Funny thing is the picture is of a joke item, so the only failure is the person who made that fail-pic.

[shmokes]

Just curious, does your lifetime license include the newest 'products'?  They split up what was once a single application into about 6, making the lifetime licenses now hundreds of dollars. 

It does not.  I remember when they made the change and I was faced with a list of the various products.  I put in my license key and it only unlocked some of them.  But among those that it unlocked were DVD to DVD and DVD to Mobile, which are the only ones I have any use for.  Actually, looking at the program now I see that I have Blu-ray to Blu-ray (which didn't even exist when I purchased my license) and file to mobile as well.  I don't have a Blu-ray drive, but I just fired up File to Mobile and it works fine, so presumably Blu-ray does too.